How to keep cash under control (a 90-day forecast)

The problem

Your bank balance tells you what you have today. Not what you'll have in two months.

And the moment you get squeezed isn't when you bill less: it's when the money comes in after the money goes out. Salaries, suppliers and taxes have fixed dates; clients pay whenever they like.

A cash forecast is for exactly this: to look ahead and see the week the account goes negative, before it happens.

Looking forward, not back

A cash forecast is simpler than it sounds. Take the next 13 weeks — about three months — and for each one line up three numbers.

Opening balance. What you have in cash at the start of the week.

Expected inflows and outflows. What comes in (invoices due, expected receipts) and what goes out (salaries, suppliers, taxes).

The sum is opening balance + inflows − outflows = closing balance. And here's the trick: one week's closing balance is the next week's opening balance. The weeks are chained together, like links. One dip below zero drags down the ones after it.

The number that matters is the low point: the week the balance hits bottom. That's where you risk an overdraft, and that's where you act — asking for an advance, moving a payment, chasing a receipt.

Try it here

This is the cash of an example business. Starting balance €18,000, and a large client with a €42,000 invoice to pay. The question is: when do they pay?

Try moving the payment term — 30, 60, 90 days — and watch the low point move.

At 60 days, in week 8 cash goes €9,900 below zero: you're overdrawn for a week, because the big invoice only lands in week 9. If the same client paid at 30 days, the payment would arrive in week 5 and you'd never go negative. At 90 days, the hole widens to €21,300 and lasts until week 13.

What you bill hasn't changed. When you get paid has. And that one fact — the payment term of the right client — moves your low point by nearly €30,000.

Do it on your data

On the example it's obvious. On your numbers, with your real due dates, the forecast tells you weeks in advance when to move — and takes the Friday-morning surprises off the table.

Want a cash forecast built on your real data? Discover LoomX Analyst — your analyst, in an app that reads your systems — or let's talk: 30 minutes, no sales follow-up.

See also: Cash flow: why you bill a lot but the account is empty, 90-day payment terms: how to avoid running out of cash and the real cases of the businesses we work with.